


tell me it’s okay

by lovelyethereal



Series: Stenbrough Fics [10]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Bill Denbrough, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Stanley Uris, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Stan Is Depressed, Stan has issues, bill helps him through it, death tw, four years after the battle with pennywise, sone of it is but the rest isn’t, this is hella sad, this is more depressing than i intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-18 07:22:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyethereal/pseuds/lovelyethereal
Summary: Four years after their first battle with It, Stan struggles with the aftermath.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough & Stanley Uris, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris
Series: Stenbrough Fics [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/884910
Comments: 2
Kudos: 99





	tell me it’s okay

**Author's Note:**

> okay so fair warning: this shit is sad and possibly triggering so please look at the tags before reading! mental health comes first and is essential!  
if i missed anything that is possibly triggering let me know and i will add it to the tags (:  
also, i apologize for any spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation mistakes

Staring at the ceiling above him, Stan's alarm clock blinks red, reminding him of just how bad his insomnia has been hitting lately. 3:06 AM, it reads, flashing over and over in the corner of his eye to the point where he only closes his eyes to get away from it's relentlessness.

Closing his eyes proved to be a bad idea. Suddenly it's darker behind his eyelids, faint bumpy outlines on the walls like rocks and the sound of rushing water is louder, more prominent...

_"Beverly?" It's Stan's voice as he calls out his friends name, the rest of the losers are behind him but their voices feel further than he thought. He turns back to face his friends upon hearing something and is suddenly submerged in darkness once again. He's no longer with the losers. How did he get here? Where are his friends? They wouldn't abandon him, right?_

_Stan doesn't have much time to contemplate the possibilities of what just happened as a sudden noise causes him to jump and drop his flashlight onto the cement of the sewers. He supposed he had always been jumpy, but the circumstance they are currently in isn't making it any easier._

_"Bev? Is that you?" He calls out again, taking a step forward, the flashlight beside him illuminating the furthest corner of the clearing. There's a figure, body contorted into an inhuman shape, face turned away from him. Stan feels his heart drop as the creature stands, much taller than humanly possible, turning to face him. He takes one step backward, then another, heart hammering painfully against his ribcage and threatening to bust out. The figure turns then and there she is, only it isn't Bev._

_She's smiling at him wickedly, razor sharp teeth bared and eyes nothing but balls of white. Stan turns to run, eyes wild with fear, running smack into something oddly cold and hard._

_She is standing before him. Stan doesn't give himself time to overthink how she got there so fast, opening his mouth to scream when a gray, boney, grimy hand covers his mouth._

_"Quiet, Stanny Boy. Wouldn't want to worry the others, would we? Though, they never truly cared about you, did they? Why else would you be in here with us? They left you to die, all alone." Stan slumps back, knees buckling but barely keeping him standing. He whimpers against the hand covering his mouth, eyes screwing shut._

_He struggles to step backward, feet shuffling against the floor when suddenly there's another hand at the back of his head, holding him in place. He opens his eyes, slowly, and immediately regrets it. His vision becomes fuzzy, the only thing in his sight are three balls of light, swirling together, moving effortlessly around one another._

_Suddenly he feels weightless, like he's floating. His vision returns to black, nothing appearing for a while. It should terrify him because he's gone blind but the wave of calm that washes over him provides a comforting moment._

_Suddenly there's a burst of light, white and brighter than anything he's ever seen. His head is presented with a million different images, flashing through his head. Blood, gore, teeth and claws, a feeling he couldn't place taking over his mind. He can hear their screams._

_The screams of his friends._

_Another flash of light shows them all dead, slashed to pieces all along the floors of the sewers. Richie, Mike, Beverly, Eddie, Ben, and Bill. He looks closer, his own slashed body laying somewhere in the corner._

_A touch to his hand makes Stan jolt upright and a scream leaves his lips, glancing frantically around him at the faces of his friends who are all trying to console him and cease the screams falling from his mouth._

_His face, cold a wet, contorts from sadness to anger to fearful, all in the span of five seconds. Hot tears are welling up in his eyes, more and more as the seconds pass, threatening to spill over. Eddie is next to him, whispering reassuring things in his ear but the only thing standing out to him is It's voice; "They never truly cared about you... they left you to die..."_

_"You left me!"_

Stan shoots up, gasping for breath and clutching his chest. He looks around, the darkness of his room bringing him an odd source of comfort as he realizes that it is a memory. He's not in the sewers anymore, Pennywise is dead, he's safe. He repeats it to himself like a mantra as if he's trying to make himself believe it. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, feet carrying him over to the small mirror hanging on the wall next to his desk.

There's a lamp atop of it, a small, pull-chain one that his parents had gifted to him years ago so that he didn't strain his eyes while working on anything late at night, not that they hoped he would be. Stan stares at his reflection in the mirror, eyes tracking the pink scars that line his face. They are faded now, barely noticeable to anyone else, but not to Stan. They still feel fresh in his mind, a painful reminder of the summer he wishes he could forget.

His summer of realization. The summer he realized how expendable he is, how unwanted he is, how unloved he is. As much as the others would assure him time and time again that they had turned around and he was gone, that they spent half an hour looking for him down in the sewers before they found him, something in his mind kept telling him that they were lying to his face.

What made matters worse was him knowing he might end up alone, born in a town unforgiving of boys who prefer the company of other boys. It truly had been his summer of realization, as he realized he had developed a crush on one of his best friends.

It wasn't Bill's fault, Stan knows. Bill being himself had caused him fall, sweet, stuttering, lost Bill. Stan wished he could hate Bill for everything he endured that summer, but he knew he couldn't. Not in a million years. He was too far gone.

He assumed the feelings might've never been reciprocated, fast forward to two months ago when Bill had shown up on Stan's doorstep at 12AM, soaked to the bone from the unrelenting rain that poured outside, stuttering through his tears about his parents packing up Georgie's room. They, evidently, had decided that it was time to move on from the past.

Stan let Bill borrow a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, which Bill aborted at as they were handed to him. "I'm just s-surprised you own something other than kha-khakis and puh-polos," Once he was changed into the lended clothes, they sat cross-legged in the middle on Stan's bed, Bill's hands holding Stan's tightly in his lap like the other boy was tethering him.

At a lull in the conversation Bill looks up from their intertwined hands and caught the fond expression that graced Stan's face. It was a rare occasion to see Stan with his guard down and it only seemed to happen when he was around Bill, not that the others could speak to that. Little did the Stan know that the look caused his heart to stutter much like his cursed mouth, skipping a beat.

In an act of bravery, he shifted forward and paused briefly, hands detangling from Stan's and cupping his jaw and leaning forward for a quick press of lips.

It wasn't much but it meant Bill felt the same and gave Stan a reason to start enjoying his life again. Every now and then, though, he would find himself tormented by his past, the walls he has built up crumbling down and the floor beneath him vanishing, forcing him to sink into the pit of self-hatred and insecurity that he tries to repress.

Stan glances down to his feet, raising a hand and examining his wrist. Littered with scars inflicted from an act that he thought would help ease the pain, yet they only remind him of how truly broken he is. No one could want this version of himself. Broken and scarred and imperfect.

He doesn't deserve Bill. He doesn't deserve anyone. Not the losers, not the life he's living. None of it. He desperately wants to call Bill to hear his voice, but it's now _5 AM_ and he knows Bill must be sleeping. Stan wants nothing more than to sleep himself but he knows that the second he closes his eyes he will be sucked into another painfully horrific memory from that summer.

He blinks, sees black, blinks again, white, again, pools of blood surrounding him and his friends.

Stan peels his eyes open again, turning toward the bathroom, immediately finding the razor blade he keeps hidden behind the toilet tank wrapped precisely in a cloth. He twists the knob on the faucet of the sink until the water begins to pour from the spout, drowning out the noise he might make.

Lifting the blade to skin of his wrist, closer to his palms, Stan sighs at the feeling of the cool metal against his pale skin. He inhales a few times, bracing himself for the pain of the blade slicing over his flesh and making another imperfection blossom. He doesn't realize he's already done it without thinking as he looks down to find blood dripping from the tip of his middle finger. He grabs the towel he uses to wrap his blade up with and wraps it around his wrist, deciding he'll clean his hand off at a later time.

He attempts to slow his bleeding before wrapping a roll of gauze around a pad of cotton to secure his wound better and further help stop to bleeding. He admits, it does help take his mind off of things for a minute or two, and then they're back there at the front of his mind and Stan is left with broken skin and a fucked up mind.

Eventually, Stan wanders back to his own room, lying down until the sun begins to shine from the space between his curtains. The clock now read _7:47 AM_ and he can hear his parents begin to shuffle out of their room, blissfully unaware of their son's mental state. It's better this way, he supposes. They need not know what torments him late at night, the memories that threaten his sanity everytime he closes his eyes.

They might not know anything is wrong, anyway. His father doesn't notice that Stan lingers outside of his office but never steps foot inside anymore. Doesn't realize that his son never sleeps anymore, hardly eats.

He decides to pull himself from his bed at a quarter to 9, changing from the clothes he wore to bed and into a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of jeans. It feels very unlike himself but he supposes they are a perfect representation of how he feels. He makes the decision to walk to Bill's house, knowing full well that driving might end horribly given his sleep deprived state.

He knocks three times and waits, the door opening to reveal the only person he wants to see. Bill, hair sticking up in all directions and rubbing his eyes, t-shirt hanging off his shoulder haphazardly. "Stan? Wh-what are you doing h-here? It's barely nine."

Stan doesn't answer, only steps forward and wrap his arms around Bill's shoulders and rests his chin on his shoulder, eyes threatening to fall shut at the warmth his boy's body brings him. "I-I needed to see you." Bill's arms come up to wrap tightly around his waist, pulling Stan's body flush against his and holding him there. "It got bad again."

Bill pulls away with a worry in his eyes that makes Stan's heart crumble. The former pulls Stan inside the house with an arm around his shoulders and leads him toward the stairs, heading up to his room. Zach and Sharon Denbrough sit silently in the kitchen, completely oblivious and, well, uncaring.

"How bad?" Bill asks, Stan sitting on the edge of his bed and Bill standing before him. Stan shakes his head slowly, curls falling in front of his eyes. He reaches up to push the hair from his face, lowering his arm back to his lap when Bill catches his hand in his. His eyes are blown wide, flicking from Stan's own back down to the hand he's holding, trailing up to the bandages wrapped around Stan's wrist. "Stan..."

Stan's eyes well up with tears, biting his bottom lip. "It got bad, Bill." He whispers again, not trusting his own voice, afraid that if he raises it higher than this he might break down where he sits. "Every time I close my eyes, I see It. I-I-I see the sewers, that woman, I hear It talking to me. I see all of us, _dead_." He pauses, allowing a single tear to roll down his cheek. "I haven't slept in a week, I can barely eat, my parents don't even notice and I fucking hate myself. I don't deserve you, or anything. I don't deserve the love and patience and kindness that you show me. I don't deserve the life I've been given. I truly feel like I'm wasting space down here. I am just- I'm so, so fucking tired." Stan breaks. "I'm tired." Bill let's go of his hand and drops to his knees between Stan's legs and wraps his arms around his torso, burying his face in Stan's chest as he cries into Bill's hair.

Bill doesn't cry, not right now. Right now he needs to be strong for his boy. Once Stan's sobbing dissolves into soft sniffles, Bill pulls back, taking Stan's hands in his own, wiping under his own eyes from the tears that he let slip. He places short kisses on Stan's knuckles and stares deeply, meaningfully in his eyes.

"We are guh-going to get through th-this, I promise." Bill takes a deep breath. "You are stronger, braver, and more de-deserving than anyone I know. And you- don't _ever_ say you don't deserve luh-love. You, Stanley Uris, deserve e-everything good that this world has to offer. You deserve the life you were given, the air you breathe, the space y-you are sitting in, and the one that f-follows you. You deserve all of it, and m-m-more." Bill is trying desperately to keep his tears at bay as he speaks and Stan is staring at him like Bill is the only person in the universe that matters. Like Bill is his world. "You are beautiful." He reaches up, placing a sweet kiss on his jaw. "You are kind." Another on his cheekbone. "You are loving." On his forehead. "You are perfectly imperfect." On his other cheekbone. "You are adorably quirky." He leans forward to place a kiss on the tips of Stan's nose who cracks a small and allows an airy chuckle to leave his lips. "An admiration." He finishes, surprising himself that he hardly stuttered, pressing a soft kiss to Stan's lips and there's a wetness on his cheeks and he isn't sure is from him crying or Stan, perhaps a mixture of both of their tears as the kiss turns salty.

Bill brings Stan's bandaged wrist up to his mouth as they pull apart and places a kiss to it. "I love you, don't e-_ever_ forget that." Stan's smile turns watery and suddenly words aren't enough to express how he feels for the boy in from of him.

"I love you." He murmurs against Bill's mouth, so quiet it's like the words are reserve for Bill and him alone, which they are. "I want to try something." He tugs on Bill's arm to make him get the hint and Bill crawls onto the bed behind Stan who turns around to face Bill, throwing a leg over his and pulling his body closer with an arm wrapped around the other boy's waist. Stan lays his head on Bill's chest, almost completely on top of the latter, listening to his heartbeat. He mutters a tired 'thank you' and let's his eyes flutter shut as a blanket is being pulled over their bodies. Bill smiles to himself enjoying the moment before he can start to worry again.

Stan falls into sleep, nothing but images of him and his friends alive an happy swirling in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> hello i’m sorry this is sad but idk call it venting or projecting idk  
i hope you liked ittt  
leave some kudos and comment pls  
i love feedback <3


End file.
